High Expectations (I’m looking at you DNF)

You know what the problem is with waiting for a sequel to a great game is that your expectations tend to run wild.

For a small example lets look at Duke Nukem Forever, the game that took 14 yers to release and legendary sequel to Duke Nukem 3D, sure there were other Duke Nukem games between the two but seeing as they exited on consoles and went back to Duke’s side-scrolling adventures but the core Duke Nukem fans we waiting for the sequel, waiting for Duke Nukem Forever.
And we had all the jokes, Duke Nukem Forever literally took forever and we eventually found out why, Duke Nukem 3D was a resounding success, in many ways it gave us elements of a First Person Shooter we had never sen before, but it wasn’t long before technology had surpassed DN3D and 3DRealms were playing catchup, and that they did, for years, through countless builds of DNF nothing was ever good enough, when a new technology was released allowing for greater immersion into the world, or more interactivity, Duke Nukem would start again, get rebuilt with the aim of being once again at the cutting edge.

Through out all of this we the fanbase saw sneak glimpses of what could have been and speculation ran wild, I mean if a game takes over a decade to produce we can only expect the end result to blow our minds, right?
And that is why were let down, what we knew as a ball busting parody of action films had become a cliche, DNF went and gave in to each and every stereotype it should have laughed at.

In one early seen in DNF we walk past a suit of power armour, to which Duke makes a joke and this is all well and good until we realise that Duke’s regenerative health is no different to the power armour of games like Halo, and similarly Duke has gone from being a one man army to having to measure up the benefits of weapons having lost his inventory in exchange for the limited weapon loadout of more current games.

We expected escapism and were left with something akin to an modern shooter pretending to be Duke Nukem..

With all these criticisms, I still enjoyed playing DNF, but it was a thoroughly underwhelming experience, with Enemies following strict patterns and in many places feeling like I was being rushed through identical areas, it just didn’t grab me as much as DN3D, which I have played through dozens of times.

When ever I see a game that has been hyped up or has a long development cycle, I just go in expecting it to nt live up to expectations.
I’m looking at you Half Life 3.